15 ms·

The Secret Society of Lightning Strike Survivors

85 points by prismatic 5y ago

swayvil 5y ago
A lightning bolt is Azathoth's touch. --- In Navajo culture, a person who has been struck by lightning is to be distrusted. Not because he is evil. But because he has been touched by a deep strangeness. He has been touched by this strangeness therefor his actions cannot be trusted. What he will do, why he will do it, how he will react. Not like normal people do. He's strange. In truth, a lightning bolt is indeed a very strange thing. It is a transformed cosmic ray. A spark from very very far away. From a very strange celestial object. A pulsar. In another galaxy. Very strange. Immensely powerful. Consider Lovecraft's Azathoth : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Navajo culture will not be remembered as a culture based in science, therefore is not a culture to be trusted. If somebody claims that has being hit three times by a lightning, their history is statistically suspicious in any case.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomrod 5y ago
    Navajo land doesn't have a ton of trees.
    - fooker 5y ago
      Also not a lot of lighting.
      - AlotOfReading 5y ago
        There's enough that lightning is a well known symbol. I've recorded oral histories on the Hopi mesas that featured individuals and cursed places being struck as divine justice. 3 is also a symbolically important number that features prominently in regional mythology.
      - doodlebugging 5y ago
        Actually, there is plenty of lightning out there in that part of the country. Years ago in a chapter of my life that has since been completed, I worked in the Four Corners area on a seismic crew. Our work took us from the depths of the canyons to the tops of the mesas and up the slopes of the mountains. It is truly some of the most beautiful country in the USA. It was a pretty normal summer day to be able to watch the clouds form over the isolated mountains. Then, in early afternoon they would break free of the mountain's grasp and go scooting across the countryside wetting the sunflower and bean crops on the mesas and kicking off small flash floods in the lower canyon creeks. I assure you that there was plenty of lightning with these isolated storms and their formation always caused us to pause our work so that we could ascertain which direction they would likely go. We carried with us large quantities of dynamite and many blasting caps. Personally, I started each day with a 75# (34 kg) backpack loaded with paper-rolled sticks of dynamite like you see in old cartoons and 150 caps with a 10 foot long lead (~3m). By the end of a good day all of that would be loaded into shotholes we had drilled, each hole with 1/2# (.23 kg) of dynamite and a single cap. Safety training told us to be sure all the caps were shunted since all it took to detonate the cap was 1/2V of electricity. On a very dry day, static electricity could accidentally pop the cap, as the story went. We all had a weather eye out for any flashes, so to speak, and if anyone saw anything we sought two things - separation from the backpacks, and cover from the storm. When you're on a mesa, the slope of the mountain, or out on the flat in the bottom of the canyon the terrain limits your movement and sometimes there simply is no opportunity to put space between you and the explosives in your pack. You just have to get down low and hope for the best. A lot of good times out there. I have photos I took of our crew taking cover under one of our vehicles during a bad storm. I thought it was funny at the time because the powder box on the buggy had a half ton of dynamite and hundreds of caps in it. I had placed myself in the rain down-slope though I still had my pack. I was just hoping for the best and, as usual, that's what we got that day. A great drenching, a scare from the proximity of the lightning, and a lot of work done under much cooler conditions after the storm passed. The clarity of the sky was remarkable, as if it had been scrubbed of all the dust and everything old was new again. There's plenty of lightning out there on and around the Navajo, White Mountain Ute, and Hopi Reservations and all across the country surrounding them. I've worked on and driven through that part of the world many times.
    - tait 5y ago
      <captainobvious to the annoyance!> Maybe it would be more clear to state that there are areas of Navajo lands with very few trees. We drove through Navajo land twice in the last week, and there were several trees. Since a pine tree can weigh like 5,000 lbs, a ton of trees is only like 1/2 of a pine tree. So, Navajo land literally has tons of trees... <thanksiamgoingnow>
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dontbenebby 5y ago
I chuckled at the idea the title evoked that it has to be kept secret, as if they cannot form a mailing list lest the lightning track them down and finish the job.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  My first thought was that the lightning enlightened (heh...) their minds in a way that they collectively understand some dark truth about the world and have to keep their discussions secret lest the wrong people find out.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    I figured superpowers.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  “Not today, Zeus!”
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
peterburkimsher 5y ago
The article is a good example about how after a traumatic experience of pain and struggle, a Community of encouragement can help to rebuild life and bring a new hope. “You’re not an outsider here,” he said. The group conducted a survey in 2017 of 595 of its lightning strike members and found that 280 of them suffered from depression and 67 were suicidal. Steve Marshburn, the founder, has personally talked 27 people out of suicide. “God,” he said, “gives you strength to do what you got to do.” That is something we can all learn from this article: to welcome newcomers, give thanks, and ask for power from above. In summer 1989, a young foreign couple and their 3 year old son were hiking in the Alps. As often happens on beautiful, clear days there, the clouds began to roll in, and the rain started to pour down. Drenched and cold, they tried to walk back to the cable car, but were making slow progress because she was pregnant. They saw a fence, and some steps (a stile) to climb over it. Rather than continue, they chose to stop and rest for a minute. Holding each others' hands, they sat down. crack They lay face down in the mud. He heard a voice coming up the valley "You are mine." Later, they discovered these words in a religious text [1] and their lives were profoundly changed. They hobbled back to the cablecar in a daze, got down the mountain, and drove to a nearby hospital. She was worried because the baby hadn't kicked for a couple of hours. When the baby did kick again, it brought her great joy! And of course, some pain, because he was kicking. His burns took the shape of a tree, or fractal, quite similar to the lightning bolt. Just as the article says: The jolt can severely burn skin, and in some cases it etches an intricate web of scars on the body that resembles the form of a lightning bolt itself, known as Lichtenberg figures, which fade within days for reasons unknown. He continued his career as a software engineer at CERN. She was holding his hand so received a milder shock but no burns, and their 3 year old son appeared to be unharmed. The baby was born a few months later, with spiky hair, which they joked was a result of the lightning. That baby grew up, studied electronic systems engineering, before moving into embedded systems, and has thankfully not suffered other shocks since. That baby was me. It feels a little weird to tell this story because although I was there, I wasn't yet born. Was the "you" in "you are mine" plural? Did I die and get resurrected before even being born? Only God knows. I feel like my parents tell the story better than I could, and there are more personal testimonies from my life that are more relatable. But if you are ever stuck outside in a thunderstorm, please don't shelter next to an electric fence. [1] Isaiah 43:1 "But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine."
hsuduebc2 5y ago
I'm really sorry for her. This just remained me again how utterly shitty US healthcare system is.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  It really seems that if you aren't in the upper income brackets you are just one major health problem away from bankruptcy.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Well, if you are low enough in the income brackets, you get medicaid to pay for it all. On the one hand, medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy, we've all heard that. But on the other hand, if it were really as bad as it seems, why don't we do something about it? I guess the answer is tribal politics. Amazing how we can all be turned against each other so effectively, while a small portion of the population, who needs help the least, has no problem whatsoever advocating vigorously for their own benefit.
    - Uehreka 5y ago
      > if were really as bad as it seems, why don’t we do something about it? This sounds like a person in a burning building saying “if it was that bad, wouldn’t I have left the building already? Maybe there’s a reason I’m in here?” Like, yeah, our politics are tribal. But one side is debating back and forth about how to fix this situation (with some good points on both sides, I’d be cool with an NHS, a Canadian single payer system, or even a German public/private combo system honestly), while the other side seems dead set on acting like the burning building just needs more gasoline and it’ll turn out alright.
      - kaczordon 5y ago
        Despite the snark about the “other side” your proposed solutions are equally blind to the actual problem. Even if we had single payer(not to mention that places like Canada rely on the drug and treatment innovations from the US) that doesn’t fix the system. The problem is hospital billing and financial scams pulled by hospitals, a majority of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health. I highly recommend reading The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care and How to Fix It to understand the real issues with healthcare in the US today.
Alex3917 5y ago
Not surprising. I was inside a couple feet from the window (with wooden blinds down) when lightning either hit a few feet outside or hit the house itself, but either way the noise and/or shock wave was strong enough that I had ear infections on and off for months. Fortunately no lasting damage, but it was clear the ENT I talked with had no idea what was happening and wasn't going to be able to do anything. Also saw a lightning bolt hit and blow up a transformer maybe 1,000 feet away. One of the loudest and scariest things I’ve ever seen.
- nerdbaggy 5y ago
  Did the sound break your ear drums and then stuff got in and started an infection?
  - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
    I didn't see the immediate connection between the strike and the infections either. I assume that is the case(?)
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    Not afaik. This was over ten years ago though so I’m somewhat fuzzy on the details. It was just surprising to me that it could cause medical issues without even being directly hit, especially while being in the house.
slyall 5y ago
Maureen Pugh, a New Zealand member of parliament, has been struck by lightning 3 times. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/national-mp-maureen-pugh-reveals-she-s-been-struck-by-lightning-three-times.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/national-mp-...
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Ugh, “not available in my region”
  - amelius 5y ago
    From Wikipedia: > Pugh and her husband John live on their farm in a mountain valley at Turiwhate, near Kumara. The house's former copper piping acted as a conductor for electrical storms, and Pugh has been struck by lightning twice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Pugh#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Pugh#Personal_life
quijoteuniv 5y ago
The article is more about the health system/society in the US than about lighting strike. If you fall from the norm, you are done, unless you find a non gubernamental group that can help you
yaur 5y ago
IANAD but I would expect that for every person to "fall down" because they were close enough to a lightning strike that the electrical effects caused them to lose muscle control and suffer burns there would be 100 people who were close enough to "fall down" due to the concussive force of being close, but not close enough to receive trauma from the elctricity directly.

85 points by prismatic 5y ago

A lightning bolt is Azathoth's touch. --- In Navajo culture, a person who has been struck by lightning is to be distrusted. Not because he is evil. But because he has been touched by a deep strangeness. He has been touched by this strangeness therefor his actions cannot be trusted. What he will do, why he will do it, how he will react. Not like normal people do. He's strange. In truth, a lightning bolt is indeed a very strange thing. It is a transformed cosmic ray. A spark from very very far away. From a very strange celestial object. A pulsar. In another galaxy. Very strange. Immensely powerful. Consider Lovecraft's Azathoth : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth

pvaldes 5y ago
Navajo culture will not be remembered as a culture based in science, therefore is not a culture to be trusted. If somebody claims that has being hit three times by a lightning, their history is statistically suspicious in any case.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tomrod 5y ago
  Navajo land doesn't have a ton of trees.
  - fooker 5y ago
    Also not a lot of lighting.
    - AlotOfReading 5y ago
      There's enough that lightning is a well known symbol. I've recorded oral histories on the Hopi mesas that featured individuals and cursed places being struck as divine justice. 3 is also a symbolically important number that features prominently in regional mythology.
    - doodlebugging 5y ago
      Actually, there is plenty of lightning out there in that part of the country. Years ago in a chapter of my life that has since been completed, I worked in the Four Corners area on a seismic crew. Our work took us from the depths of the canyons to the tops of the mesas and up the slopes of the mountains. It is truly some of the most beautiful country in the USA. It was a pretty normal summer day to be able to watch the clouds form over the isolated mountains. Then, in early afternoon they would break free of the mountain's grasp and go scooting across the countryside wetting the sunflower and bean crops on the mesas and kicking off small flash floods in the lower canyon creeks. I assure you that there was plenty of lightning with these isolated storms and their formation always caused us to pause our work so that we could ascertain which direction they would likely go. We carried with us large quantities of dynamite and many blasting caps. Personally, I started each day with a 75# (34 kg) backpack loaded with paper-rolled sticks of dynamite like you see in old cartoons and 150 caps with a 10 foot long lead (~3m). By the end of a good day all of that would be loaded into shotholes we had drilled, each hole with 1/2# (.23 kg) of dynamite and a single cap. Safety training told us to be sure all the caps were shunted since all it took to detonate the cap was 1/2V of electricity. On a very dry day, static electricity could accidentally pop the cap, as the story went. We all had a weather eye out for any flashes, so to speak, and if anyone saw anything we sought two things - separation from the backpacks, and cover from the storm. When you're on a mesa, the slope of the mountain, or out on the flat in the bottom of the canyon the terrain limits your movement and sometimes there simply is no opportunity to put space between you and the explosives in your pack. You just have to get down low and hope for the best. A lot of good times out there. I have photos I took of our crew taking cover under one of our vehicles during a bad storm. I thought it was funny at the time because the powder box on the buggy had a half ton of dynamite and hundreds of caps in it. I had placed myself in the rain down-slope though I still had my pack. I was just hoping for the best and, as usual, that's what we got that day. A great drenching, a scare from the proximity of the lightning, and a lot of work done under much cooler conditions after the storm passed. The clarity of the sky was remarkable, as if it had been scrubbed of all the dust and everything old was new again. There's plenty of lightning out there on and around the Navajo, White Mountain Ute, and Hopi Reservations and all across the country surrounding them. I've worked on and driven through that part of the world many times.
  - tait 5y ago
    <captainobvious to the annoyance!> Maybe it would be more clear to state that there are areas of Navajo lands with very few trees. We drove through Navajo land twice in the last week, and there were several trees. Since a pine tree can weigh like 5,000 lbs, a ton of trees is only like 1/2 of a pine tree. So, Navajo land literally has tons of trees... <thanksiamgoingnow>
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dontbenebby 5y ago

I chuckled at the idea the title evoked that it has to be kept secret, as if they cannot form a mailing list lest the lightning track them down and finish the job.

anonporridge 5y ago
My first thought was that the lightning enlightened (heh...) their minds in a way that they collectively understand some dark truth about the world and have to keep their discussions secret lest the wrong people find out.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  I figured superpowers.
rbanffy 5y ago
“Not today, Zeus!”
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

peterburkimsher 5y ago

The article is a good example about how after a traumatic experience of pain and struggle, a Community of encouragement can help to rebuild life and bring a new hope. “You’re not an outsider here,” he said. The group conducted a survey in 2017 of 595 of its lightning strike members and found that 280 of them suffered from depression and 67 were suicidal. Steve Marshburn, the founder, has personally talked 27 people out of suicide. “God,” he said, “gives you strength to do what you got to do.” That is something we can all learn from this article: to welcome newcomers, give thanks, and ask for power from above. In summer 1989, a young foreign couple and their 3 year old son were hiking in the Alps. As often happens on beautiful, clear days there, the clouds began to roll in, and the rain started to pour down. Drenched and cold, they tried to walk back to the cable car, but were making slow progress because she was pregnant. They saw a fence, and some steps (a stile) to climb over it. Rather than continue, they chose to stop and rest for a minute. Holding each others' hands, they sat down. crack They lay face down in the mud. He heard a voice coming up the valley "You are mine." Later, they discovered these words in a religious text [1] and their lives were profoundly changed. They hobbled back to the cablecar in a daze, got down the mountain, and drove to a nearby hospital. She was worried because the baby hadn't kicked for a couple of hours. When the baby did kick again, it brought her great joy! And of course, some pain, because he was kicking. His burns took the shape of a tree, or fractal, quite similar to the lightning bolt. Just as the article says: The jolt can severely burn skin, and in some cases it etches an intricate web of scars on the body that resembles the form of a lightning bolt itself, known as Lichtenberg figures, which fade within days for reasons unknown. He continued his career as a software engineer at CERN. She was holding his hand so received a milder shock but no burns, and their 3 year old son appeared to be unharmed. The baby was born a few months later, with spiky hair, which they joked was a result of the lightning. That baby grew up, studied electronic systems engineering, before moving into embedded systems, and has thankfully not suffered other shocks since. That baby was me. It feels a little weird to tell this story because although I was there, I wasn't yet born. Was the "you" in "you are mine" plural? Did I die and get resurrected before even being born? Only God knows. I feel like my parents tell the story better than I could, and there are more personal testimonies from my life that are more relatable. But if you are ever stuck outside in a thunderstorm, please don't shelter next to an electric fence. [1] Isaiah 43:1 "But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine."

hsuduebc2 5y ago

I'm really sorry for her. This just remained me again how utterly shitty US healthcare system is.

spaetzleesser 5y ago
It really seems that if you aren't in the upper income brackets you are just one major health problem away from bankruptcy.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Well, if you are low enough in the income brackets, you get medicaid to pay for it all. On the one hand, medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy, we've all heard that. But on the other hand, if it were really as bad as it seems, why don't we do something about it? I guess the answer is tribal politics. Amazing how we can all be turned against each other so effectively, while a small portion of the population, who needs help the least, has no problem whatsoever advocating vigorously for their own benefit.
  - Uehreka 5y ago
    > if were really as bad as it seems, why don’t we do something about it? This sounds like a person in a burning building saying “if it was that bad, wouldn’t I have left the building already? Maybe there’s a reason I’m in here?” Like, yeah, our politics are tribal. But one side is debating back and forth about how to fix this situation (with some good points on both sides, I’d be cool with an NHS, a Canadian single payer system, or even a German public/private combo system honestly), while the other side seems dead set on acting like the burning building just needs more gasoline and it’ll turn out alright.
    - kaczordon 5y ago
      Despite the snark about the “other side” your proposed solutions are equally blind to the actual problem. Even if we had single payer(not to mention that places like Canada rely on the drug and treatment innovations from the US) that doesn’t fix the system. The problem is hospital billing and financial scams pulled by hospitals, a majority of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health. I highly recommend reading The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care and How to Fix It to understand the real issues with healthcare in the US today.

Alex3917 5y ago

Not surprising. I was inside a couple feet from the window (with wooden blinds down) when lightning either hit a few feet outside or hit the house itself, but either way the noise and/or shock wave was strong enough that I had ear infections on and off for months. Fortunately no lasting damage, but it was clear the ENT I talked with had no idea what was happening and wasn't going to be able to do anything. Also saw a lightning bolt hit and blow up a transformer maybe 1,000 feet away. One of the loudest and scariest things I’ve ever seen.

nerdbaggy 5y ago
Did the sound break your ear drums and then stuff got in and started an infection?
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  I didn't see the immediate connection between the strike and the infections either. I assume that is the case(?)
- Alex3917 5y ago
  Not afaik. This was over ten years ago though so I’m somewhat fuzzy on the details. It was just surprising to me that it could cause medical issues without even being directly hit, especially while being in the house.

slyall 5y ago

Maureen Pugh, a New Zealand member of parliament, has been struck by lightning 3 times. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/national-mp-maureen-pugh-reveals-she-s-been-struck-by-lightning-three-times.html https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/national-mp-...

Scoundreller 5y ago
Ugh, “not available in my region”
- amelius 5y ago
  From Wikipedia: > Pugh and her husband John live on their farm in a mountain valley at Turiwhate, near Kumara. The house's former copper piping acted as a conductor for electrical storms, and Pugh has been struck by lightning twice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Pugh#Personal_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Pugh#Personal_life

quijoteuniv 5y ago

The article is more about the health system/society in the US than about lighting strike. If you fall from the norm, you are done, unless you find a non gubernamental group that can help you

yaur 5y ago

IANAD but I would expect that for every person to "fall down" because they were close enough to a lightning strike that the electrical effects caused them to lose muscle control and suffer burns there would be 100 people who were close enough to "fall down" due to the concussive force of being close, but not close enough to receive trauma from the elctricity directly.